If this is supposed to be a book about Ursula K. LeGuin, Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L'Engle, and Orson Scott Card, why does it spend so much time talking about J. R. R. Tolkien?

That's not really an inherent defect -- after all, Tolkien was the one who put this sort of fantasy on the map. If you're going to do literary criticism of the genre, Tolkien is bound to come up. But it reflects a sort of confusion in this book: Is it an attempt to define fantasy? To define literary criticism? Or to discuss the four authors mentioned in its title?

The problem that author Oziewicz struggles with is the issue of genre versus setting. Oziewicz points out, correctly, that a lot of people dislike "fantasy." But this is sloppy terminology. I can reduce Oziewicz's many pages of discussion to one basic point: People don't object to fantasy settings ("The Tempest," anyone? Or "Macbeth"? The Witches of Eastwick?). They object to fantasies where the genre is essentially that of medieval romance -- of which Tolkien was the practitioner par excellence. But there are many sorts of tales underpinned as fantasy: fantasy romance (Tolkien, Alexander, LeGuin). Alternate history (Harry Turtledove's "Videssos"). Beast fables (Watership Down). Comic fantasy (Terry Pratchett's "Discworld"). Fantasy wars. Fantasy mysteries (the Lord Darcy stories). I repeat, critics don't object to the fantasy setting; it's the romance genre.

Fantasy, according to Oziewicz, is "a cognitive strategy which assumes the existence of the supernatural" (p. 36). But this is simply not true. Not all fantasies involve a supernatural power. They merely assume laws of physics which differ from ours -- e.g. the "magical" laws of "similarity" and "contagion." These allow a universe of magic which operates according to laws just as inexorable as our own law of gravity; it's just that those alternate laws don't apply in our universe.

There is no automatic link between romance and fantasy; although many medieval romances had fantastic elements, some did not. Floris and Blanchefleur has no need of magic; indeed, you could have a version of Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" without magic. It's just that you get a better "Knight's Tale" if you add in the amazing power of Fate to make all three characters' prayers come literally true. This was the art that Tolkien understood so well.

Oziewicz is trying to change our methods of criticism of "mythopoeic fantasy" (which is basically fantasy romance, although Oziewicz also wants it to be part of our understanding of the universe). In his view, we should use "holistic" rather than "reductionist" criticism. To which I say, "Don't throw any tools out of your tool kit. Both can tell us something." But I really did have problems with several of Oziewicz's specific arguments:

* Fantasy "feeds the belief in the ultimate conquest of death" (p. 85). But Lloyd Alexander's Prydain has no hint of an afterlife -- there is a land where no one ever dies, but you sail to it! (If you have the right sort of ship, anyway.)

* Fantasy involves a "quest-and-mature plot" (p. 86). Many do. But Tolkien's characters are mostly old (Aragorn is 90, Frodo 50; Gandalf and Legolas and Gimli older still). Roger Zelazny's heroes in the Amber books are ancient. Robert Jordan's hero, "The Dragon Reborn," is the reincarnation of someone thousands of years old.

* "[T]he plot of mythopoeic fantasy must end happily" (p. 87). Is Ged happy after The Farthest Shore? Is Orual happy in Lewis's Till We Have Faces? The latter is a "Learned Better" fantasy, not a Happy Ending fantasy. And there were medieval romances that didn't end happily -- Le Morte d'Arthur, in all of its incarnations, is an obvious example. A romance will generally end with an imbalance being righted (Mordred does not succeed Arthur) -- but that's not a happy ending. Remember, the reason Frodo goes over the sea is not because he is going to be happy; it's because he has to leave his home because his hurt is beyond cure! It is an exile, not a salvation.

Page 87 also talks about the importance of eucatastrophe. Of course eucatastrophe is important in Tolkienesque fiction; Tolkien invented the term! Oy.

And what's this gobbledigook about "morphogenetic fields"? (p. 108). How can anyone who spouts stuff like that expect to be taken seriously? (On that point, I should perhaps make a confession. I grew up on LeGuin's "Earthsea" and Alexander's "Prydain"; these are books are truly love, and my interest in them is why I bought this book. But I barely made it through A Wrinkle in Time, and eventually stalled in the Alvin Maker books, too, simply because L'Engle's fake physics is so bad and Card's pseudo-history just so bogus. To me, what gives fantasy a bad name is the tendency -- found also in Lewis's Narnia, for instance -- of not creating a unified, logical whole. Taking American history and mis-spelling Tecumseh and giving him a knack and a brother who understands "greensong" is not coherent and unified; it's worse than Rube Goldberg.)

Once I start nitpicking, I nitpick a lot, as I'm sure you can tell. (This wasn't my entire list, I fear.) And Oziewicz is particularly open to that because, as a non-English speaker, he doesn't always write or explain his points very well. This book was an awful slog -- I eventually made myself read five pages a day. Even for a voracious reader like me, it wasn't easy.

The irony is, I agree with Oziewicz's deep conclusion: If we are to save this poor, battered world, we will have to change our founding myths (e.g. the one that is popular now, although few are willing to put it this way, that "My genes are better than your genes, so let's Make My Genes Great Again"). And I agree that the new mythology will have to come from a Romance. That's why I love Alexander and LeGuin (and Tolkien) as much as I do. But I just don't think Oziewicz's approach to those Fantastic Romances will get us there. I wish it could. ( )